Last week I talked about taking the time to have fun and find inspiration. I’m from the Catskill Mountains and this entire area is one place that really inspires me. I haven’t used my camera in a while, so I figured it would be fun to go out over the weekend and get some use out of it. I live about 5 minutes or so from the Pepacton Reservoir, so I decided to take a drive over there and spend some time taking pictures. Usually I just drive on by the reservoir so it was nice to spend time to actually appreciate and capture its beauty. I was with my family and we drove around for about an hour probably.

I’m still an amateur when it comes to photography, but I do know that the lighting is very important when it comes to taking photos. The sun was pretty bright, but I still think I managed to get some decent landscape photos. When I got home I downloaded the pictures onto my computer and did some minimal editing in Photoshop. I adjusted the levels, brightness, and contrast slightly. I wanted the blues, greens and oranges in my photos to pop a little bit, but still look natural. Sometimes too much editing can lead photographs to look tacky or too vibrant. Here is what I came up with.